Episode Notes

Fancy Octopus is a mathematics and computer science student who hosts a podcast called Buried Gems. Buried Gems is a podcast where Fancy Octopus and his team search the internet for the next hidden great author. We go into detail on why he started the podcast, we discuss learning music and playing music, and he takes the time to explains to me a D&D newb about what D&D is all about. Fancy Octopus loves movies and he takes the time to share with us his list of best and worst horror films that are available to watch on Netflix. This was a really fun conversation that I hope you enjoy. Don't forget to check out Buried Gems!

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Episode Notes

Michael Rossi is a young philosopher residing in Ohio. Michael shares his story on how from a young age he wanted to be in the military and even got into a ROTC program. Over time he was aware enough to determine that this was not how he enjoyed spending his time. He consciously made a decision to transfer out of the ROTC program and into what he enjoyed doing and that was studying and discussing philosophy. During our conversation we talk about different philosophies, some of Michael's favorite philosophy books, we go deep into self thought and many other topics. I asked Michael some questions I had about my own philosophies and he dove in and gave some actionable items. This was an interesting conversation and I hope you learn something during your time listening to my conversation with Michael.

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Jason Jang currently living in Toronto, started his first career, post university, as a web developer. After about 10 years of work in the software field, he felt that this was not where he saw himself spending the majority of his time. He left his job at a software company and took some time off to find out about his compulsions. After spending time in Amsterdam he discovered he was interested in solving problems and helping other people. Jason talks about how acupuncture was something he had always joked about doing and how an unexpected coincidence landed him in an acupuncture school. We go into details on life philosophy, Bruce Lee, music, martial arts, and many other topics during our conversation. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Jason.

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Episode Notes

Curry Stegen (@Passion4thePara) is a retired Air Force Reserve Officer currently living in Utah and is an active Paranormal Investigator. He is absolutely passionate about Paranormal and is the creator of the podcast, Passion For the Paranormal Podcast. During our conversation, we go into detail on how Curry became interested in the Paranormal, how he got started, his first paranormal experience. We also touched on the many different types of paranormal activity, spirits, big foot, UFOs, NDEs and much more. It is always great to talk to people who are extremely passionate about what they do, and Curry was no exception. Don't forget to check out his podcast, Passion For the Paranormal.

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Episode Notes

Josh Tracey (@JoshuaDTracey) is a new jersey based host of the podcast, Juicing the Numbers. He is a data analyst, a martial arts instructor, a lover of music, and, of course, a sports enthusiast. His favorite sport is baseball which is logical considering his love of math and analytics. Baseball is truly a game of statistics! During our conversation, we cover topics like what Josh considers to be the most important baseball statistic, martial arts and its benefits, concerts in bowling alleys and much more. Josh was really great to talk to. Don't forget to check out his podcast, Juicing the Numbers.

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Episode Notes

Mathew Falvai (@MathewFalvai) is a musician from Canada who spends his time by day working as a video game streamer on a90skid.com. When he is not playing video games professionally, you can find Mathew performing his music live at local venues. He is part of a band called The Magyars. In this episode, we talk about how he got to be able to play both video games and music for a living. We delve into topics like human nature, fear, and Mathew shares a good story about an experience he had on Craigslist. I had a lot of fun recording this episode and I learned a lot.

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Zack Sokol (@SUDA41) is a podcast producer and an audio engineer from California who spends his time reading books, watching movies, and visiting theme parks all over the world. During our conversation, we spend time discussing Zack's background and how he came to find his passion of theater and film. We discuss some of Zack's favorite books and a play he wrote and performed about one of his favorite authors, Ray Bradbury. We get into some highly interesting history of theme parks, Walt Disney, and a bunch of other topics. Zack is very well read and certainly knows his stuff so this conversation was really fun and informative.

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Episode Notes

Hipster Pug (@hipsterpug is a musician from Holland whose focused genre of music is downtempo lo-fi electronic. He also has songs that are electro swing and dub step. In this episode, we go through his journey of how he started his video game Youtube channel under the name of arcadesalad. As he recounts the story, he tried his hand the Youtube channel world, didn't love it, so he moved on and discovered what he loved: spending time on music production. He recently released an album called Moon Quake that you can check out on Spotify. The key takeaway for me in this episode was when Hipster Pug mentioned, "the most important thing is do what you like to do and don't worry what other people think of it. Just do it!" With that in mind, I hope you enjoy this conversation with @hipsterpug_.

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Episode Notes

Background I am going to start with a quick background about myself: I am 30 years old. I am a son, a brother, a husband, and a friend. I enjoy music, books, sports, being outside in nature at the beach or on the mountains. I like being around positive people and I think of myself as a pretty optimistic person. I work as a Computer Engineer and have been working since graduating from college 8 years ago. My life is good and I know that I am extremely fortunate to be in the position that I am in. Recently I have been feeling like there has to be something more for me in this world, other than the repetitive 9-5 cycle. The idea of being stuck in a repetitive flow of normality has hit and it is frightening. I have followed the steps that were laid out to me as a child to reach the idea of "success". I followed the same process that many others have followed: I went to school and studied hard to get into a good college. Then, I went to college and studied hard to get a good job. Put in the time, put in the work, and success is yours. When typical Americans go to college, we are 18 years old, and are expected to know what we want to do for the rest of our lives. Although it may seem like that decision is set in stone, this is not, in fact, true. At 30, I am finally realizing that we have the freedom of choice every morning when we wake up and get out of bed. We have the choice to decide who we want to be and how we want to spend our most precious resource, time.

Why have I decided to spend the “most precious resource” creating this podcast? The idea of creating a podcast came to me in the middle of the night. Creating a podcast came to me after doing a writing exercise before bed. The writing exercise is to ask yourself: “If you had all the money in the world, any ability in the world, how would you spend your time?”. Your task in answering this question is to just start typing and see where it takes you. After I got past the “buy a private jet” or “buy a mega yacht”, the answers became more telling. A few of them were: spend more time with family and friends, travel the world and meet new people, solve difficult problems that can help people, become a master so I can learn how to help others reach their max potential. It was interesting to see that all of my answers involved other people. As humans, I think one of the most incredible advantages we have over other species is our ability to connect with one another through language. Now, this can be a bad thing. As we have seen throughout the history of humans, we have made some fairly significant mistakes. But I believe bringing people together, all people, could be one of our most powerful and positive ways to help each other grow. So that is a little bit about the genesis, but why this podcast now?

I have come up with a list of five reasons why I have decided to start this podcast. Understand that some of these are for selfish reasons but really, in the end, the hope is that by growing and making myself better, I can pass that knowledge on to someone else. I hope that someone in this world of ours gets something positive out of this podcast even if the positivity is as simple as entertainment.

Reasons for starting this podcast: To learn about people from all over the world. Humans are fascinating. From what drives each of us to what scares us. It can only be beneficial to learn more about typical people from all over the world. One of the main things that drives meaning for me is creating and building relationships. Through the development of this podcast, I will get to talk to many different people from all over the world and organically build a community of like-minded strangers. I have always had ideas and dreams of writing a book, or starting a blog to get my ideas out into the world. The idea of a podcast came to me excited me so i decided to take action and do it without fear of others opinions. To further develop my communication skills. I would say my communication skills could always be improved and this negatively affects my ~confidence. Starting this podcast will undoubtedly force me to become a more effective and confident communicator. Lastly, I want to do something with my time that is fun, new, and meaningful.

Why Strangers In A Small World? The name of the podcast is Strangers in a Small World. I chose this name because we use the label “strangers” to denote people we don't know. If we actually took the time to have conversations with strangers, we would discover how similar we truly are. We may be in different places around the world with different dreams and motivations, but in the end we are all human. Like the song says, it is a small world after all. What is this podcast going to sound like? The current format of the podcast is to have conversations with different people from all over the world. The goal is to show that we are all actually very similar, despite our geographical differences. I will go into the conversation knowing little-to-nothing about the person I will be talking to. So, the idea is we go into the conversation as strangers and will end up finding many connections. The conversations will inevitably vary in length. Each guest will be in control of their level of anonymity while on the podcast or they may wish to promote any current projects or causes they are passionate about. Thanks! Thank you for taking the time to read the genesis of Strangers in a Small World. If you are interested in listening, please subscribe to the podcast. And if you are interested in having a conversation with me please reach out on any of my social media platforms. Any and all comments or feedback is welcome and appreciated so please reach out!